The Real Thing
by Crash Test Dummies
Summary: A true-to-legend werewolf finds her way into Forks and into Sam's pack. She stirs up life for the wolves and vampires alike while trying to find her place in a pack of creatures more powerful than herself.
1. Chapter 1

**Hello all, and welcome to my very first fanfic!**

**I own nothing but the plot and any characters you don't recognize. **

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She was standing just behind the tree line staring directly at him. Why hadn't he noticed her before? Her brilliant white skin stood out sharply against the grim forest. She was downwind of him, so he hadn't been able to smell her. Still, he should have at least felt her eyes on him. When he blinked she was gone. He would have to mention this to Sam when they got to Emily's house.

"Did anyone else notice something a little creepy when we were coming back in from the patrol?" Quil beat me to it again. He had been doing that a lot lately. Embry nodded in agreement.

"Kinda like being watched, right? I've never gotten that feeling before. At least, not so… I dunno. It was pretty weird."

"I saw a girl standing by the trees. She just stood there and stared at me. I don't think she's a leech, but she was downwind so I can't be sure. She sure was pale enough," Jacob told the other two.

"It would be a good idea to tell Sam," Embry stated. When the trio got to quaint little house they did just that.

"Paul, Jake and I will take the night shift then. You guys might want to get some sleep now. I want you sharp for tonight." Sam's word was law, and the boys did as he said. Paul and Jake returned to the small house as the sun sank lazily into the horizon, pausing only long enough to kiss Emily's cheek and inhale one of her baked delights. Sam led them out into the forest as the full moon rose into a clear night.

About half an hour into a monotonous patrol, Jacob heard a sound he first attributed to the death cries one of the many creatures the wolves hunted; several snaps, not unlike the sound of bones breaking, and a low bellowing. Paul's voice asked in his mind, "_What the hell is that?"_

_ "I thought one of you might be hunting,"_ he replied.

_"It's not us. Go check it out."_ Sam's thoughts said. It was at this point that Jacob realized the odd noises had stopped. Another noise had replaced it, however. It was like the sound of music through someone else's ear buds sitting two seats away from you on the bus. Instead it was just one voice with no music, talking to itself. The trio searched the entire night and never found the source. Several times one of the wolves would hear a foot slipping in a puddle, or rain hitting a pelt that wasn't theirs. Every time they looked, though, there was nothing. Whatever it was, it was being careful.


	2. Chapter 2

**Again, only Lupine is mine.**

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Just as the pack were about to dig into the feast Emily had prepared for them for lunch there came a knock at the door. Sam stood slowly and the playful jostling between the others stopped. The person at the door knocked again, this time a little harder. Sam opened the door.

"I would like to come in." The voice was delightfully female, if a little gravely. Sam, shocked into a moment of submission, stepped aside and let the girl in. Jacob frowned slightly. Standing in the doorway was the same girl who had stared at him from the forest the day before. He had seen her clothes the day before, and her short white-blonde hair. She looked slightly disheveled up close, but her eyes were disarmingly sharp, a yellow-green colour. She stood before the pack and waited for Sam to sit down again at the head of the table. His stance remained defensive. The newcomer looked at her bare feet for a moment, then looked up.

"My name is Lupine. I want to join your pack."

Sam was the fastest to recover. "What do you mean by pack? I don't know what you are talking about."

"Please do not pretend to be ignorant of your own condition. And do not insult me. I followed your scent all the way down to this fungus farm from Canada. I have followed you for a week now, and I know exactly what you are. All of you. Now I am telling you that I would like to join your pack."

"So what are we then, Lupine?" Sam's question was almost mocking.

"You are shape shifters. I have yet to determine what purpose you serve exactly, but it seems you pose no threat to the human population in the area. I would like to join your pack."

"You are wrong, girly. We are werewolves. Sorry." Paul smirked, crossing his arms over his expansive chest.

"You are wrong, girly." Lupine turned her head to look at Paul casually. "I am the werewolf. You know the stories don't you? Full moons and so on. You are shape shifters. I have come because I wish to join you pack." She turned back to Sam and dipped her head ever so slightly. "I will return again when the sun sets today. I am anxious for your answer."


	3. Chapter 3

**Lupine is mine, all mine! Nothing else though. :C**

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True to her word, Lupine returned as the last rays of sun ran from the dense clouds. She knocked on the door only once this time. When Sam answered she stepped inside the small house as if it was the most normal thing in the world.

"Hello, Alpha." Lupine dipped her head to him, looking at him through the corners of her eyes. Sam led her to the small living room where a circle of chairs had been set up. Each of the pack members sat in a chair, legs facing inward. Sam sat in one of the chairs, leaving one for Lupine. She dragged it a small distance from the circle and sat down.

"Now you must understand that we can't just allow you to waltz into the pack. We have discussed this and have decided to ask you some questions," he pulled out a notebook, "and decide what happens after that." When Lupine nodded he continued. "First we need to know if you have ever been in a pack before."

"Of course. What is a wolf without her pack? Nothing."

"How many were there in you pack?"

"Nine of us. My mother and father, my mate, my sister and her mate and her pups. Also my brother, Aero. We were called the Snow Walkers."

"If you had such a large pack and a mate, what are you looking for here?"

"I am looking for a new pack. My brother killed us by making an agreement with the Coal Hunters."

"I don't follow you." Several of the others exchanged meaningful glances.

"For us, territory is everything. Hunting grounds. We keep everything in control and make sure the other packs stay out. Humans coming during the hunting season has always been a big problem. They want to kill us for our coats. Anyway, the Coal Hunters' land was starting to be developed. All their prey was running for the hills. My brother decides to make a deal with the Coal Hunters. He thought we could merge our pack with theirs'. They did, and for about a month everything was cozy. Our pack was at sixteen members then. Soon after that my sister's pups disappeared. My sister followed. From there it went to hell in a hand basket. I am the only one left of my pack. We did manage to wipe out the Coal Hunters though." Lupine looked down and played with the frayed hem of her sweater. "Is there anything else you need to ask me?"

"Yeah, I have a question. What happened to your brother?" Paul's question caught Lupine by surprise, but she recovered quickly.

"Before I answer that I feel it may be important to give you some additional information. My pack was of a very strong bloodline. We maintained that by 'picking off' the weaker offspring. My mother and father had had a very difficult time in getting just the three of us, making my mother reluctant to remove my brother from the gene pool. He never was very smart, but he had a good build and the proper colouration for a Snow Walker. We are pure white, you know. So, once I had managed to dispose of the last of the Coal Hunters I killed him. Because he had made the error that killed the pack one of the pack had to kill him." Emily gasped in the other room. Paul crossed his arms and Leah looked up at the strange girl for the first time since her arrival.

"You just killed him? He was your own flesh and blood!" Sam frowned at Leah's outburst but said nothing.

"So was the rest of my pack. He didn't react when they were slaughtered. In fact, he was the one to kill the pups. Should I really have shown him any mercy? Would you have?"

"When you put it that way…" Leah looked down at her fingers.

"Now, if I may, I have a question for you." Her eyes flicked to Sam before she continued. "On Monday night you killed something. I want to know what it was. It looked like a man but smelled like stale candy and carnage.

"That would be a vampire, if I am not mistaken. They smell so sweet it makes your nose burn. It was probably a newborn, a human who had just been turned. We have been getting a lot of those lately." Jacob had answered without thinking. He knew Sam was going to chew his ear off for it later, too.

"Are they challenging prey?"

"The older ones can be. They know how to fight. Younger ones are stronger but kinda stupid," Quil offered.

Sam chose that moment to stand. "If you would be so kind as to stand outside for a moment, Lupine. We have to discuss this." She nodded and left, closing the front door behind her.

"I like her," Leah said.

"You turning lesbo on us now, Leah?" Embry and Quil snickered together, only to be silenced by a glare from Sam.

"She gives me the creeps. Her eyes are really freaky. Sounds like a good hunter though. Maybe she could be good for us," Paul growled from his seat.

"I'm with you there, dude," Quil said.

"Yeah, me too," Embry agreed. Seth nodded in agreement.

"Jake? What do you think?" Sam prompted.

"Uh, yeah. Sure, I guess." Sam frowned at his answer.

"Alright, Jake, Sam, go find her and tell her she can join. She will pull night patrol with you two tonight. Tell me what she does in the morning, and if she con connect with the rest of us in wolf form."

Jake stood slowly and walked out of the house, his movements absentminded. Seth stayed closed behind him. Lupine was sitting cross-legged at the base of a tree on the other side of the clearing.

"So what's the verdict?" she asked as the pair approached. She smiled at Seth as she stood up.

"You're in, but you have to pull a night patrol right now. We're gonna run with you." Seth's answering smile was goofy.

"Good. Just give me a moment to phase, and I will be right with you." She pulled her sweater over her head as she said that, then turned to the dark of the forest to undress completely.

"You may want to look away. Not very many people can stomach this. You can just burst into your form but most of my skeletal structure has to change. Shouldn't take more than ten minutes though. The large moon helps too. Don't ask me why though." The two boys turned, a little shocked by her blatant display of nudity. There came the same sound of breaking bones as the night before, and a hollow moan. Lupine had been right about the time it took her to change bodies.

Lupine walked on silent paws, stopping beside Jacob. Her shoulder just cleared his waist. She looked up at him and wiggled the short stump of what would have been her tail. The boys phased, a single explosive action that hinted only at freedom from the human form. There was no pain in their transformation, as there was in Lupine's.

_"Where will we run tonight?"_ Lupine's voice sounded like it had come over a faulty line, her words faint and surrounded by mental static. Her thoughts came with the taste of purple and the sound of green.

_"We run the perimeter at night to make sure leeches don't come over to our side."_


	4. Chapter 4

**Aren't exams fun? Well, anywho, here is the next chapter!**

**Lupine is mine, everything else, not so much. :C**

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For three hours the trio ran without so much as a whiff of vampire. Each of the wolves ran a stretch about three miles long along the boarder surrounding the reserve. Lupine ran at an energy saving trot, allowing her feet to lead her along her path and leave her other senses free. The rain had relented earlier, leaving behind a muggy heat and treacherous puddles. She paused to lap up some muddy water, sneezing when she brought her head up. The smell of stale candy and fresh blood was faint, tickling her nose like a feather.

_"I've got something here. I'll give you more if I find something."_ Lupine's thought came to the boys in a cloud of pink tinged with the flavour of light grey. Hearing her thoughts was like being betrayed by your senses. Each one received something it shouldn't. Seth and Jake had yet to see any of the colours her transmitions came with.

The static that was Lupine's mind cleared once more.

_"Definitely something. Smells slightly human too. Is that normal?"_

_"Sounds like a newborn to me. Where is it?" _Jake's answering thought had to fight upstream against the interspecies static to Lupine's mind. It was odd, not having every pack member in your head at the same time.

_"Along the coastline. Will it jump for the wa- Oh shit!" _Lupine's thoughts were clipped with green fading to orange. For a moment there was nothing, and the static resumed. Jake could feel Seth behind him.

_"Think she's okay?"_

_"I don't know, Seth."_

For a while more there was only the soft static from her mind when suddenly her words came to the pair of wolves to strongly that it made their teeth rattle and left searing white streaks behind their eyes.

_"ASSIST ME!"_ Her mind was crystal clear with excitement and Jake heard, even it if it was suppressed, the double tone of an Alpha. By the time the words had stopped ringing in their ears they had found her, holding on to a struggling vampire's leg. Her one front leg was mangled and deep cut ran down her side. Pristine white fur was insulted by the presence of crimson.

When Jake and Seth ripped off the creature's arms she held on. When the vampire lost it's other leg to Jake, she held on. Only when the leech fell flat on its face did she let go, but only for a moment. She limped over the newborn's back and closed her maw around the vampire's neck and shook her head as hard as she could. Tears appeared in the marble skin, followed by the snapping of muscles. With a final tear the vampire's head was off.

_"Bastard messed up my leg. Would you look at it? It'll take ages to heal! Two weeks, at least." _Jake and Seth found out what puce tasted like.

_"Seth, take her back to Emily's, and ask Sam to call the leech doctor."_

_"Wait, what?"_

_"Look, I'll explain on the way, okay?"_ Jake had to hand it to the kid, he was patient with this girl.

_"Come on, I'll show you the way back. I'll see you when I can, Jacob."_ Seth turned away and walked in the direction of Emily's house. Lupine hobbled after him and Seth filled her in about the Cullens and the treaty with them.

_"Are you sure you don't want me to carry you,"_ Seth asked when she had to stop a second time. Again she refused his assistance, simply shaking her head and leaning against a tree for a moment.

_"My first patrol and I have to be carried back? That wouldn't look very good, would it?"_ She chuckled halfheartedly at her own joke. Ten unsteady steps later she stumbled, landing on her chin in a puddle. _"Balls!"_

_"That's it. From here I carry you." _Seth the wolf stepped modestly behind a tree and stepped out as Seth the human. He picked Lupine up and strode purposely onward. "Isn't this easier?" The only response he got from the bundle of fur in his arms was a very pointed 'humph!'.

The light on the small house's porch illuminated little of the surrounding area. Seth put Lupine down very gently and tapped on the front door with his knuckle. A window opened on the second story and Sam poked his head out.

"What's wrong?"

"We got a leech but it got Lupine. You might have to call Carlisle."

A moment later the door opened and Sam stood in the doorway rubbing his eye. "Come on in then. I'll ring the doctor. Might as well get her comfortable, Seth."

The conversation was short and mumbled over the receiver.

"He will be waiting for you at the boundary line. I'll finish patrol with Jacob."

The moment after Sam had changed forms Jacob's mind said _"Something is very off about Lupine. She can do the Alpha voice. You can't even think about not obeying."_ Sam heard the memory of her voice in the other man's head.

_"When she comes back we will ask her about it. Until then, what can we do about it?"_


	5. Chapter 5

The patrol had left mud caked on both wolf's paws and though much of it fell away with the phase, some clung to forearms and calves. There was so much moisture in the air it felt like you could drown just by breathing in. Lupine was lying on the couch when the pair walked in. She raised her head to look at them, her long pink tongue flopping out of her mouth.

Seth walked in, holding two cups of coffee. "Carlisle had to sedate her. She is still a little out of it. Emily made you guys some coffee."

"Was it really that bad that he had to knock her out?" Jake sipped the hot liquid tentatively.

"Oh no, she would probably would have held still for that. Problem was that she kept trying to kill the doc. Her exact words were 'I've killed you before, brother. There is nothing stopping me from doing it again!'"

"She thought Carlisle was her brother? Seriously?" Seth only nodded in reply.

"Well," said Sam as he sipped from his cup, "not much we can do until she wakes up. Fully wakes up. Why don't you two get some rest? I'll give you a ring when she comes round."

When the door clicked shut behind the two teenagers Sam fell into an overused chair opposite the white wolf on the couch. She would whine frequently, each burst of sound loud and high pitched. Every now and then she would lift her head and look at the room through clouded eyes. Her tongue hung out her mouth in a most comical way. It took her almost three hours to find her feet. Another to be able to control them.

"I think you have some explaining to do, Lupine." Sam looked at her over a fresh cup of coffee. The steam rising from the lip of the cup blurred his features ever so slightly. "Why don't you phase back so we can talk."

The wolf on the couch shook her head.

"What do you mean, no?"

She shook her head again.

"Well, looks like everyone is going to have to join you. Stay put while I call them." Once he had made all the calls he carried her far into the forest until they came to a shady circle beneath the trees. He phased and lay down opposite her about five feet away. The other wolves gradually filtered in and formed a semi-circle around her.

_"Jake, show us what her voice sounded like last night." _

Jake dutifully replayed the memory. Even second hand the memory of Lupine's demand made several of the wolves react.

_"How is it that you can do that, Lupine? The tone that makes other unable to say no to your command?"_ Sam tilted his head to the side as he thought the question.

A sort of staticy sound that none of the other wolves had noticed before cleared, and Lupine spoke to them. _"The double tone? All of my kind can do that. The werewolves believe that there are two souls in our bodies. One is the human, the other is the wolf. During times of extreme stress or excitement it is possible to hear both souls at the same time. It creates extra incentive for the rest of the pack to assist the one who spoke. It is very important that that is the only time the rest of the pack hears the other soul. The human soul must hold onto the wolf very tightly. My clan compared the bond between souls like a leash. There have been those who dropped the leash. Those werewolves then become the stuff of nightmares. They become huge, savage beasts with a wolf's taste for the hunt and a human's taste for cruelty. _

_"Other times a werewolf will allow both souls equal dominance. It is impossible to predict how that individual will turn out. Some create very successful packs. Others turn out like my brother. I hope this is a satisfactory answer."_ The static returned

The others were quite for a while, but Leah asked, _"Why did we have to phase for this?"_

Lupine's laughter rolled around their heads. _"My uncle broke his leg once. He turned human before it had healed properly and the joints stuck. His human form had an elbow that was four inches higher than it should have been. I don't really want that to happen to me."_


	6. Chapter 6

**Well now, this took a lot longer than anticipated. .**

**School has been intense, what with me being a senior now and everything.**

**But fear not! I now have my own computer, so I will be able to upload things with much greater ease!**

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Lupine's recovery seemed to take forever to the other wolves. While the others could heal a deep scratch in a matter of moments, Lupine had to put up with a more human rate of healing. She had the cast on for a full month and by the time it came off it had turned a dirty brown.

She walked tenderly on it first, testing the joints that had been constricted for so long. Before long she was galloping around. The deep cuts in her side had long since turned into puckered pink lines. For the first time in four weeks she turned back to her human form and walked into Sam and Emily's house stark naked. Several of the pack turned around or covered their eyes quickly, embarrassed by her shamelessness.

That evening she went on her second patrol, running through the night with Seth. They passed the time with very little conversation, each wolf content to run in silence.

Being in the silent, chilly night air awakened Lupine's senses and she began to relish the time she as allowed to spend in the forest hunting for invaders. She volunteered more frequently than the other wolves, even as the weather became sour as a result of falling temperatures.

As the months slipped past Lupine became more muscular and lean. She ate infrequently with the pack at Emily's house, preferring to hunt. Some times, the rank stench of meat on her breath was too much for the other wolves. When questioned about her behaviour she put it down to the colder weather.

When the new year rolled around and spring began to reclaim the land Lupine seemed to calm down. She began attending the feasts prepared by Emily more frequently and her rash and feral mannerisms all but disappeared. It was possible to have normal and civilized conversation with her again.

Leah began to hang out with Lupine more often. They would patrol together, and talk of all the frivolous things they had never been able to talk about with anyone else.

Leah and Lupine had been on patrol all night. Their conversation had bounced over dozens of topics, each fanciful. They had told each other of their dream houses, children, husbands they would hope to have one day but knew they never would. For the first time, Leah asked a question about the past.

_"Did you love your mate?"_

_"No. It would be foolish to mate for a mutual attraction. Instead, we mate for genetics and bloodlines. I do suppose I could have grown to love him though. I know of lust and sex. Trevor could make by body sing with pleasure, but I did not love him. And you? Have you ever felt love?"_

_ "Oh, once. It was a long time ago. It doesn't matter now. Besides, now that I am what I am, love does not matter."_

_ "Why?"_

_ "In the same way your mate was chose for you, fate choses our mates for us. We call it 'imprinting'. It's like... Like you see that person and they become your whole world. You can't think of anything but them and suddenly you can't imagine our life without them."_

_ "You have imprinted, then?"_

_ "Oh, no. I have seen it in the other guys' minds."_

For a while they ran in silence, each digesting what he other had said.

_"What does love feel like, Leah?"_

_ "It is the most fantastic feeling you can imagine. You could be in the worst mood, but when you see the person you love, the entire world isn't as bad as it was a second ago. You can;t help but feel happy around them. You may argue at times but in the end, there isn't a single person who you would be happier to spend your life with."_

_ "Does love ever stop existing between two who have felt it?"_

There was a moment of heavy silence between the two women. When Leah replied, he voice was thick with sorrow. _"No."_


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